


Unheard Messages

by talefeathers



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bittersweet, Brotherly Love, Brothers, Drabble, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Voicemail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 01:57:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20381815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talefeathers/pseuds/talefeathers
Summary: Valentine checks his voicemail messages for the first time in several months.





	Unheard Messages

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: [Things you said over the phone.](https://sickburnsides.tumblr.com/post/187127461253/prompts-1-things-you-said-at-1-am-2-things)

Valentine didn’t check his voicemail very often. 

He almost never felt like listening to it, even just to empty it out, and nine times out of ten the messages were spam, anyway, so he didn’t think he was missing much by letting them fester. Every now and then, however, if his phone happened to die before he was able to plug it in, it would return to life bearing a push notification that told of the number of unheard messages lying neglected within it. And sometimes, when this happened, Valentine would deign to discover what they were.

This was one such occasion.

Valentine lay in his bed at creeping-up-on-midnight o’ clock, his ears still ringing from the concert where he’d drained his phone’s battery this time. He squinted past the brightness of the device’s startup screen, then, when the blue light filter kicked in, he read:

**New voicemail (7)**

Rolling his eyes, he tapped the notification and brought the phone to his ear.

_ You have. Seven. Unheard messages. _

_ First unheard message. _

The first message was from his pharmacy, for a prescription he’d picked up eons ago, before he’d learned that he could opt to receive text notifications, instead. The second and third messages were both spam, in which people named Ryan and Katie, respectively, offered to help him pay off student loans he did not yet have.

His thumb hovered over the touchscreen, ready to delete the fourth message the moment it began to play, but this time the voice that leapt into the darkness froze the blood in his veins.

“What the fuck, you don’t answer the phone when your brother calls you in the middle of the goddamn night? You know the kind of shit I get up to, Val, I could be hemorrhaging in a fucking crack den right now.”

Valentine clapped his free hand to his mouth, afraid to breathe. Afraid to miss even a note of Mercutio’s tinny message.

“Guess you don’t fucking want an Oreo McFlurry, then,” Mercutio continued. Slurring, Valentine realized. “_ Or _ an apple pie.”

“It’s like two in the morning, Cue.” That was Benvolio’s voice, distant. Valentine noticed that he could hear Romeo, too. Laughing. “Kid’s probably fucking sleeping.”

“Well, get him one, anyway,” Mercutio said. “A McFlurry.”

“You gonna wake him up for a McFlurry?”

“He would deserve it,” Mercutio said petulantly. “For not _ picking up his goddamn phone! _ But nah, I can, like. Put it in the freezer, you know?”

Valentine remembered this, now. It had been finals week for him, but seniors got out a week earlier than everyone else, so naturally Mercutio and his crew had spent that time on a bender.

This had been two months ago. A week and a half before --

“Anyway, I’ll be home soon, okay, kiddo? Be home soon. I love you, bud. Stay sexy.”

_ End of message. _

_ To play this message again, press -- _

Valentine did.

“What the fuck,” Mercutio crowed again, “you don’t answer the phone when your brother calls you in the middle of the goddamn night?”

This time, with his hand still pressed to his mouth, Valentine started to laugh. The giddy, breathless laugh his brother had pulled from him on so many midnights before.

“Guess you don’t fucking want an Oreo McFlurry, then. _ Or _ an apple pie.”

He laughed so hard his body shook with it. His mattress squeaked with it.

“Well, get him one, anyway. A McFlurry.”

Tears began to roll down his cheeks. He stifled a cough; he worried his uncle would hear him.

“Anyway, I’ll be home soon, okay kiddo? Be home soon.”

He gasped in a breath. He choked it out.

“I love you, bud.”

He realized, belatedly, that he wasn’t laughing anymore. That his body shook with sobs; that his mattress squeaked with them. 

His phone tumbled from his hand, then, and it bounced into the bed beside him.

He crossed both arms over his eyes, then, and he wept himself to sleep.


End file.
